Green Provocateur, a global urban art intervention, will launch from April 10-17th during Milan’s international art, furniture and home design fair, Salone del Mobile, at the ninth edition of its satellite fair, Green Island 2011. The project won a bid at the invitation of AMAZElab, the sponsoring cultural organization.

Appearing as a sudden huge splash of abundant green life on graffiti marked stairs leading to Garibaldi Railway Station platform, the outdoor photo installation is the first seed in the launch of Green Provocateur, a global art initiative appearing around the world as an invitation to people, buildings and green worlds to converse. The photograph of bright, sunlit trees behind a glassed urban fence, taken by internationally recognized photographer, Paul Clemence, will green the formally uninspired 2-story staircase into a transformative experience for residents of the transitional neighborhood of Isola. Once a “forgotten” neighborhood, now being touted as “an oasis in the city” by international architects like Cesar Pelli and William McDonough, Isola is becoming a green architectural and experimental centerpiece in advance of Milan’s hosting of the 2015 World Expo entitled Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.

Green Provocateur accepted the invitation to launch during Salone Internazionale del Mobile, as Milan hosts an influx of 300,000 design-savvy people every April. As a satellite fair, Green Island, hosts leading green artists, designers and theorists during the week. The Green Provocateur project is curated by Jade Dressler and PLANT. a creative agency based in New York, seeding conceptual experiences for artists and the public. Even after Salone week is over, Clemence’s photographic image, printed on eco-friendly paper and glue, measuring about 15 x 50 feet and originally taken in Koln, Germany, will stay up indefinitely.

“I find architecture’s poetry wherever I go,” says Paul Clemence. A master of composition, Clemence has established himself as an internationally exhibited artist, his perspective helps viewers see the beauty and significance of details that would otherwise go unnoticed. A noted author on art and architecture, his latest book was the survey of the Miami art scene, Miami Contemporary Artists, as co-author, and is considered the definitive survey on the subject, followed his book, Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, a comprehensive photographic tribute to Mies van der Rohe’s only design of a private home, and his first book, South Beach Architectural Photographs, featuring timeless black and white images of Miami’s famed Art Deco architecture.

“Green Provocateur Milan will invite the exploration of new interspecies relationships,” relates curator, Jade Dressler. “Our hope is that Green Provocateur is a bridge, just as planned integrated agriculture and architecture, community gardens and edible estates provide a meeting place for bio-diverse wild nature and urbanites.”

Green Provocateur will create a blog series chronicling the journey to complete the project as well as the green art, architecture and design at the 2011 Salone, to be featured in Metropolismagazine. Sponsored in part by Robert Allen Design, the project is supported by a team in New York, designer Al Montagna of smallearth, and in Milan, art director, Andrea Locci and Alessandro Frassei and the community of supporters on indiegogo.com. An integral part of the project’s philosophy is the crowd-funding platform, allowing the public to participate in funding and a dialogue with Green Provocateur.

Green Island is a series of events during Salone week, curated by Claudia Zanfi, of AMAZElab, to explore through art and theory, the possible sustainability and harmony of the urban landscape. Well-known design thinkers and theorists such as Andrea Branzi, architects Stefano Boeri, designers and studios such as Droog and Designersblock, The Green Network, the City of Milan, and brand sponsors Polidesign, the Alessi Museum and other design and art high-profiles, will join the Isola community of artisans to participate in workshops and art installations, including the planting of Milan’s first weed garden.

Green Provocateur will appear in cities around the world. You can learn more about Green Provocateur at http://www.indiegogo.com/GREEN-PROVOCATEUR where a video and links to the blog, Facebook and Twitter can be found.

American born, but raised in Brazil, Paul Clemence has taken his design sensibility, acquired while attending the School of Architecture at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and transposed it onto film, resulting in some of the most avant-garde photographs of relevant buildings throughout the world. His work has been shown in Brazil, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and major art fairs, like Art Basel Miami Beach and appears regularly in major design and lifestyle magazines. Clemence is the author of several books, including “South Beach Architectural Photographs” and “Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House”, a photographic tribute to Mies van der Rohe’s only design of a private home and he was co-author of a survey of the Miami art scene, “Miami Contemporary Artists.” He is now based in New York City where he is developing a new and unique portfolio of the city’s urban landscape. PaulClemence.com

Jade Dressler is a Creative Director who has directed the branding and public relations for luxury and pop-culture lifestyle brands for over twenty-five years. Jade has produced exhibits for Anonymous Gallery and The New Museum in New York and has been engaged by art clients such as Design Within Reach and International Art Expo. Clients include American Express Publishing; Hachette Filipacchi; HGTV; The Sundance Channel; VH1; Food & Wine and Metropolitan Home magazines; Anne Cole Swim; Aveda; Benjamin Moore; Louis Vuitton; Speedo; Sunglass Hut and Yahoo. Jade has also designed clothing and a couture accessories collection, JAMP, which sold internationally and was commissioned for the runway presentations of Bill Blass, Mary McFadden and Oscar de la Renta. Jadedressler.com, Jade Dressler’s blog